Let's Talk Positionals

Since Endwalker, and Monk's loss of two-thirds of its positionals, there's been a fair bit more talk about positionals. My issue there, however, has been that --at least among what I've seen of late-- the positionals are typically treated as either good or bad in and of themselves, with little consideration of the finer gameplay considerations or irritations they may offer.

For instance, I enjoy positionals on the whole. The APM and preemptive movement they offer, in terms of obliged movement between (certain) GCDs, makes jobs feel more active. That being said, I do not enjoy missing out on a positional because of server-noticed movement that has yet to register on my screen or fails due to the certain skill checking for its relative position later than others, etc.


Given this, I'd like to ask four quick questions:

1. What do you like about positionals, if anything?
   
   
2. What do you dislike about positionals, if anything?
   
   
3. Might there be a way to mitigate what you dislike without diminishing what you like or increase what you like without adding onto or introducing things you'd likely dislike?
   
   
4. View the quick A/B or A/B/C comparisons below for Monk, Dragoon, and Samurai. Which among those choices do you prefer?

MONK
A: What we have now. Positionals only on 2 skills but only True North.

B: Leniency Mechanic (Trait). Back to all 6 Positionals. True North is gone and RoE does not nullify positionals, but, say, your every third successful positional causes the next positional you'd have missed to instead count as a hit, stacking up to 3 times (or, effectively 3 and 2/3s). It thus requires no preemption (less challenge) but also isn't susceptible to sudden/random movement (less annoyance).

C: What we had before. Back to all 6 Positionals. True North and perhaps RoE nullify positionals.


DRAGOON
A: What we have now. Positionals only on Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, and Fang & Claw. True North.

B: Leniency Mechanics (Priming and Choice). Disembowel can "prime" the positional for Chaos Thrust (it does not add damage to Disembowel, but if landed from the rear, Chaos Thrust can land from anywhere), and Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust can be cast in either order from either combo, starting from Lance Mastery.


SAMURAI
A: What we have now. It's worth noting that there's already a fair bit of modular control available per Iaijutsu to allow for Yukikaze to be saved for upcoming turns/spins.

B: Mostly the same as now, except that Shipu can "prime" Kasha and Jinpu can "prime" Gekko.


NIN and RPR, meanwhile, are never locked into a particular positional and a particular moment, since NIN can always swap between rear and flank, so long as it keeps sufficient Huton margin, and RPR controls the timing of its positionals via prior, bankable, oGCD gauge-spenders.

I do not like positionals but do like positions mattering.
I made the same recommendation in the monk thread but I'll explain here.
Instead of an arbitrary restriction or equally arbitrary bonus damage because an ability wants to clap some cheeks instead of a flank, I would prefer to have abilities that specifically target positions that are available.
A practical example: Combo starter1 -> buff combo -> split ability, One targets the flank for X damage and grants Buff A. The other targets the rear and does X damage guaranteed crit + movement speed buff.
I think this would be far more interesting gameplay and not feel nearly so arbitrary. You could always counterplay instead of feeling like your dps is suffering because the tank wont spin the mob around.
This on paper sounds like normal positions we have now with extra steps, but I think this differs enough by the player having an actual choice on where to target instead of being locked to a specific rotational combo and being punished when you are unable to hit that.
This was specifically aimed at monk. Something like a samurai probably doesn't need such in depth positional requirements (but I don't know enough about swordplay to determine if they have specific examples of real world use)
The current positional setup, I think, adds some complexity to a class, but not necessarily enough to be interesting, Monk is fast enough it generally feels fine to bob and weave them, but Dragoon and Sam feel robotic repositioning to hit them while having abilities that actively take you out of that mode. Jumps reposition you at whim and encourage you to attack from afar where position is at range and irrelevant, Sam has cast times that make position irrelevant compared to timing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Given this, I'd like to ask four quick questions:

1. What do you like about positionals, if anything?
   
   
2. What do you dislike about positionals, if anything?
   
   
3. Might there be a way to mitigate what you dislike without diminishing what you like or increase what you like without adding onto or introducing things you'd likely dislike?
   
   
4. View the quick A/B or A/B/C comparisons below for Monk, Dragoon, and Samurai. Which among those choices do you prefer?

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1: Like you, I preferred the increased activity of Monk on a moment to moment basis. Positionals played a role in that, as did the OGCDs we had and lost over the expansions. A shame that they got recycled into animations I still don't get to see unless I sync down.

2: Similarly, I didn't like missing them due to mechanics out of my control. At the same time, I'm sure Black Mages don't like being forced to interrupt a cast due to mechanics outside of their control. Like Monks, they have some means to deal with that. More than Monk does by 90, if I understand correctly.

3: The thing is, SE already introduced something to ALL melee jobs to help ignore positionals, it's just that for Monk this was far more meaningful as we had so many. This, in addition to RoE, meant that we could ignore them for a considerable amount of time in Shadowbringers. Probably too much, but for me these WERE the 'leniency' mechanics you discuss later in your post.

4: My only real interest here is in Monk and Samurai, so forgive me if I don't address the Dragoon here. Maybe I ought to give it another whirl this time around.

Of your Monk options, I would choose a modified C. All positionals restored, ignore the whiners, they have other jobs that cater to them as is. The real kicker is to remove True North from the game as a whole, boost positional potencies for all jobs that have them to serve as an actual reward for landing them. I think players need to be forced to accept that they can't always land everything at all times, but that it is something worth striving for, rather than something we can math out to say proudly that we ignore 99 percent of the time because the damage increase outside of Bootshine isn't significant enough.

RoE is our leniency mechanic, Monk uses this to maintain optimal dps on the boss at the risk of eating boss mechanics. Risk vs. Reward, choosing safety or going all-in when necessary offers greater engagement to a boss encounter for EVERYONE in the group. How far can we push things to the razor's edge before failing or pulling off the kill? How far can we stress available healing resources before it's too much? That sounds legitimately exciting to me, and its the sort of thing that drives players to exploit every possible advantage, to optimize as much as they can.

Finally, introduce something to other jobs with positionals to serve a similar role without necessarily working exactly like RoE does. Maybe there are different conditions involved, maybe it could work like some of the leniency mechanics you discuss, but it should definitely be something that is player controlled. We should decide where and when we want to push, or when we want to play it safe.

With Samurai, I'm still fairly early into leveling it, but it doesn't feel all that different to me from ShB, and that's probably for the best. Option A's fine enough, we'll see how I feel later.

1. I like having an extra thing to keep track of while I'm fighting. Positionals add to that and moving around feels more engaging that standing still, at least in the case of melee with no cast times. Managing them while dodging out of AoEs feels very satisfying.

2. Same issue with latency. Also that they've been pushed into only giving a little extra potency.

3. What you said about a lenience trait for the latency, and as for the actual effect of hitting them: if they had an extra visual or audio effect when you landed them, that would make them so much more satisfying. Might even get the people that don't like them to get a kick out of it. Right now it's just damage numbers and most players aren't looking at those. I liked how SAM's ones gave you more gauge before they changed that. For MNK, for example, they could give chakra or feed into another gauge/mechanic.

4. B for MNK, for sure. Just to account for lag or tanks wigging out. Haven't gotten SAM or DRG to 90 so no comment.

1. positionals are a unique, fun mechanic that gives extra things to do while fighting instead of just standing still. i've seen no other char in another mmo like monk with their positionals on their main skills and this makes the job stick out in terms of playstyle. i haven't wanted to main another job since i started this one in stormblood with tk monk.

2. i dislike not hitting the positionals (of course) whether it is due to mechanics or tanks moving the boss, BUT it just makes actually hitting the positionals that much better. i'm willing to accept the fact that i won't hit 100% of them, but it gives me another thing to optimize in fights. also, there's no feedback system for whether you hit them or not.

3. i think what monk had previously was fine. 6 positionals plus TN plus ROE. just enough to get by and keep them when necessary, but not too little to where you couldn't manage when you won't hit positionals.

4. i prefer C for monk, although i would take any system with all 6 positionals intact. this is the only melee that i care about. i think that in order to satisfy the lack of feedback i was talking about earlier, hitting a positional should also give you a chakra, maybe even replacing the chakra gained from crits. this would help with more tbc since all of the ogcd's were taken away and it would also give feedback as to whether you hit the positional or not, especially if this system replaced the crit one. it would make chakra generation a little more consistent as well.

Part of what makes BLM Fun even tho it's ( for the most part ) all about spamming one button as much as possible is positioning and minimizing the movement you have to make.
It's the same with positionals on melee.

People who look at them as a '' design flaw '' don't really understand what people think makes them fun in harder content.
They're not a design flaw, the same way that even a good BLM having to micro-move isn't a design flaw.
It's part of what makes it engaging and not brainless outside of knowing the mechanics and adds an extra layer of depth and skill expression.

This is just my opinion but i HATE Positionals.
i Hate when Damaging abilities Forces Movements on me that i would otherwise would not do.
When bosses are spamming 90015435515 stuff that you NEED to avoid, positionals just make me feel Shit...
For me Positionals don't add anything to the game just Annoy me.